


It All Breaks Down at the Role Reversal

by littlemel



Category: My Chemical Romance
Genre: F/M, Gender or Sex Swap
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-27
Updated: 2015-01-27
Packaged: 2018-03-09 07:57:54
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,825
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3242150
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/littlemel/pseuds/littlemel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Mikey brings Rae home, Gerard doesn't get it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	It All Breaks Down at the Role Reversal

**Author's Note:**

> Title from "Nancy Boy" by Placebo. Thanks to [](http://clumsygyrl.livejournal.com/profile)[](http://clumsygyrl.livejournal.com/)**clumsygyrl** for the speedy beta. Originally posted June 30, 2008.

When Mikey brings Rae home, Gerard doesn't get it.

He's at the kitchen table with a cigarette in one hand and a pen in the other when he hears the door open, Mikey's voice carrying down the hallway and another, distinctly feminine one underneath it. It's two-thirty in the afternoon on Sunday, and Gerard's only been awake an hour. He's on his third cup of coffee, and he hasn't showered in a couple days. Definitely not fit for company. Shit. Oh well.

"Hey, Gee." Mikey breezes in with a girl in tow, and Gerard squints at her through a haze of smoke as Mikey opens the fridge and starts rooting around inside. She's tall, broad-shouldered, her nose and mouth a little too wide. Her hair is dark and short and curly; she wears glasses, and no make-up. Not pretty, exactly, but interesting, the way the parts of her face make up the whole.

It's not like Mikey doesn't bring girls home all the time--kid gets more play than anyone Gerard's ever known, especially since he started interning at Eyeball--but not girls like this. They usually wear pink and have blonde hair and do their best to pretend Gerard doesn't exist. This one's wearing an Iron Maiden t-shirt, the "I" and the "N" stretched to distortion across her chest; she smiles as she pulls out the chair across from Gerard's and plunks down into it. Gerard blinks hard, surprised. The fridge door closes with a thump.

"This is Rae," Mikey says. "She knows Sean what's-his-name."

Like that explains everything. Or anything. Gerard doesn't know what he's supposed to say to that, so he just says, "Oh" and does a bit of shading on his sketch.

"He took me to prom, actually," Rae says. Gerard nods, hums noncommittally. "You go to SVA?"

"Yeah."

She extends her hand across the table, her fingers rough and strong when they close over Gerard's. "Nice to meet you," she says, and sounds like she actually sort of means it.

"You too," Gerard says slowly. He's still not sure what to make of her, what the hell she's doing here, or why she's being so nice to him. Maybe he shouldn't be so cynical, but it's just not the usual reaction he gets from people, and definitely not from girls. _Especially_ the ones Mikey brings home.

"You playing D and D today?" Mikey asks, shuffling up behind Rae's chair and setting a can of Coke down in front of her. She pops the tab, wiggles it back and forth until it comes loose in her fingers.

"Huh?" Gerard makes himself look away from Rae's hands, up at Mikey's face. He looks kind of annoyed. "Oh, uh, no. Got cancelled, why?"

Mikey looks pointedly at Rae, and all the blood in Gerard's head seems to rush to his cheeks. "I've got shit to do, though," he says hastily, gathering up his sketchpad and his pencils. He stubs out his cigarette, grabs his coffee. "Gimme ten minutes."

He'll hit the Tick Tock, grab the corner booth and blow the last five bucks in his wallet on a bottomless cup of coffee and a plate of disco fries. Finish up this comic so he can bring it into work tomorrow and show his boss. Not think about this Rae girl and what Mikey's doing with her, or vice versa, or why Gerard even cares so much in the first place.

*

He stays at the diner for four hours, until the waitresses switch shifts and his hands have gone shaky from too much coffee. He's got a cramp anyway, but he's almost done with the last panel. He'll finish it in the morning, or later if he can't sleep. Shouldn't take long.

It's still early, though, not even nine o'clock when he pulls into the driveway. The lights are still on downstairs and the same blue car is parked on the street as when he left. It must be Rae's. She's still here, then.

Gerard takes the stairs to the basement slowly, hesitates at the bottom with his fingers curled loosely over the doorknob. But whatever he's about to walk into can't be any more awkward than the time he found Gabe bare-assed at the refrigerator, looking for orange juice. At least, he really fucking hopes not. He takes a deep breath before pushing the door open, just in case.

The bathroom door is closed, water wheezing through the old pipes. Someone's in the shower. Gerard peers cautiously around the corner, and Rae's sitting cross-legged on the couch with a pair of headphones on and a comic book open across her lap. She's also wearing one of Gerard's t-shirts, and as far as he can tell, no pants.

Yeah, this is definitely right up there with Gabe on the awkwardness scale.

Gerard's cheeks go prickly-hot, his palms damp. He clears his throat. Rae doesn't look up, and he realizes he can hear the music coming from her headphones. There's no way she can hear him. He takes another step inside, crossing purposely in front of the lamp so his shadow cuts right in front of her.

"Oh, hey!" She smiles and pulls her headphones down around her neck, grabs her Discman from the cushion next to her and thumbs down the volume. Her hair's messier, her mouth bitten-pink, and Gerard's pretty sure he can see a hickey blooming on her neck, low behind her ear. "I didn't hear you come in." She points to her headphones. "Obviously."

She shifts over into the corner of the couch, drawing her knees up under her chin. Her legs are forever-long, her thighs thickly muscled. Gerard's staring and he knows it, forces his eyes back up to her face.

"I raided your comic books," she says, pushing her glasses back up her nose. "I hope you don't mind."

"No," Gerard croaks. "Not at all." He perches carefully on the opposite arm of the couch, as far from her as he can get. She's got a little L-shaped scar on her ankle.

"Oh, and Mikey said it'd be okay if I borrowed your shirt?" She plucks at the front of it, distorting Dracula's face even more. "His are too damn small, you know?"

Gerard cracks a smile at that, nods a little uneasily. "He's a fucking beanpole, I know."

"I'm not gonna wear it home or anything," she adds. "I spilled Coke all over myself, is all, so Mikey let me wash my clothes. They should be dry by the time he's done in the shower."

"Okay. I mean. It's fine. That you borrowed it."

There's a beat of silence, heavy and a little too long. Gerard stares pointedly at the carpet.

"Hey, you know Frank, right?" Rae asks. Gerard glances at her sideways and nods. "Pencey's playing at the Loop tonight, and me and Mikey are gonna go, if you want to come with...?"

Gerard wouldn't mind seeing Frank tonight, actually; he's always got good weed and is always generous with it, but Gerard's not really up for tagging along on one of Mikey's dates. No matter how nice Rae is being to him.

"Nah, thanks, I'm just gonna hang out here tonight, I think."

Rae tucks a thick section of curls behind her ear. "You sure?"

"Yeah. Thanks, though, really."

The shower turns off with a hard thump and Gerard gets to his feet, grateful for the distraction. He steals another look at Rae's legs when she turns toward the bathroom. There's a scar on her knee, too, long and thin.

"I'll just-" Gerard gestures vaguely toward the kitchen, sidesteps the coffee table and rounds the other side of it. Then the bathroom door's opening, curls of steam seeping out into the living room, Mikey standing there with a towel around his waist.

"Hey, Gee."

Mikey waves, and Gerard waves back, almost misses his next step when Rae pushes off the couch and Mikey pulls her into the bathroom with him. The door shuts behind them, too hard, and there's a squeal and a laugh and then a long, drawn-out nothing.

Gerard flips his car keys into his palm and heads back out again. He's almost out of smokes anyway.

*

Mikey and Gerard are a little stoned, the last leftover spiral of paper from the roach unraveling in Gerard's fingers. He wants to ask where Rae is tonight but won't. He wants to sing a little, but doesn't.

"I should start another band," he says, pulling the ends of his hair over his mouth. The ends are dry, split. They taste like dye, the way his fingertips taste like graphite and paint when he chews his nails. Like he's made up of colors, but none of them his own. Shit, maybe he's higher than he thought. That Xanax probably helped.

Mikey jabs Gerard under the ribs with his big toe, and Gerard yelps, jerking away. "Hey! What!"

"We're already _in_ a band, Gee."

"Raygun Jones is not a band, Mikeyway. It's you and me fucking around in our basement when we get high. It's an _idea_. It's a fucking logo, but it's not a _band_. And I love you, but how many times can we sit around here while you play the same three chords and I warble out bad fucking poetry and call that shit a band?"

Mikey pushes up onto his elbows, his face all squinched up. "Dude?"

"Sorry," Gerard mumbles, scrubbing his hands over his face. He fidgets, digging his bare toes into the seam of the couch, where the cushions meet. "I'm just restless."

"Rae plays guitar, you know," Mikey says, settling back down again. "And I don't think she's in a band right now. You should talk to her."

"Yeah," Gerard says vaguely, after a pause. He's picturing Rae with a guitar in her hands, legs apart, hair flying around her face, and trying not to tent his jeans. "Maybe."

"I'm serious, dude. She plays and she's really fucking good. Get her before someone else does, if you're serious about this."

"I'd have to see her for myself first," Gerard says, picking at a loose thread on his shirt. "I can't trust you to be objective when you're sleeping with her."

Mikey pushes up again, reaches for the phone on the coffee table. "She's coming by tomorrow. I'll tell her to bring her guitar."

"Oh." Fuck. "Yeah, okay."

*

As soon as Rae pulls the first note from her guitar, Gerard gets it.

Full force, right in the gut like a bruising punch, he gets it. Her glasses are perched on the bookshelf, her eyes closed but Gerard's not sure she'd be able to see anything without them anyway. Her mouth parts a little, her tongue touching the darker pink corner as her fingers fly over the strings. She hits a note that makes Gerard's pulse stutter against his ribs, and he takes a half-step back into the arm of the sofa, catching himself on his palm before he falls.

Mikey's watching from behind her, leaned against the bathroom doorframe, his arms crossed and his head bobbing. He's got that funny little half-smile he gets when he's really enjoying something. Gerard catches his eye and smiles back, just as crooked, a little stunned. Mikey was right; she's really fucking good. And all of a sudden Gerard's dead serious about the band, because it's a total waste if Rae's not playing in one, and Gerard wants her. For the band.

Her last riff hangs in the air for a few seconds after her fingers leave the strings, vibrating through the room and Gerard's veins. It gets hot in the basement in the summer, and Rae's hair is clinging to her face in tight little curls, framing her eyes. She sticks her glasses back on, smiles carefully as she pushes a hand through her hair. She looks from Mikey to Gerard, expectant and maybe a little nervous.

"Well?" she asks finally.

Gerard almost laughs. He wants to and he tries to but it sticks, comes out a scratchy cough. He needs a beer and a cigarette and a fucking cold shower. He needs to get the hell out of here before Mikey pulls Rae into his room and shuts the door that doesn't shut out a damn thing, because Gerard can still hear them, hear her, and now he gets it, see, and he just. He can't.

"Are you kidding?" He clears his throat, lets the smile he feels creeping up break big and wide across his face. "Holy shit."

Gerard watches Mikey's arm slide around Rae's waist, his hand fold over her hip. Gerard's chest squeezes hotly but he smiles through it, clenching his teeth.

Mikey looks back at Gerard, that same excited puppy look on his face as when they formed their first band, and their second, and every one after that, no matter how terrible they were. "See? Told you she was good."

Rae blushes and slips out from under Mikey's arm to touch Gerard's, just her callused fingertips near his elbow, but it's enough to make Gerard's stomach twist up in knots again. She smiles. "We should celebrate or something. Diner?"

"Or there's a party at the Eyeball house," Mikey offers. "Free booze, and my buddy's DJ-ing."

"You guys go." Gerard shrugs Rae off gently and ignores the look Mikey throws him, half curious and half exasperated. But if Gerard's gonna get drunk tonight, it can't be with her, or them. He'd actually just really like them to leave so he can go shut himself in his room and jerk off before the memory of Rae playing goes too fuzzy, because the reality was way better than anything he imagined on his own. There's not exactly a tactful way to say that to your brother and his girlfriend, though.

"Really," Gerard says. "It's cool. I'm just not in a party mood."

"I'll call if we go by the diner later," Mikey says, already reaching for his jacket, slung over the back of a chair. Rae's packing up her guitar, flashing Gerard an easy smile as she snaps the case shut. Mikey grabs his keys off the table, quirks an eyebrow at Gerard. He knows something's up, but he doesn't ask, not now. "You can meet us there."

It's not a request, and Gerard nods, caught between stupid, overwhelming gratitude and feeling like a douche. When Mikey pulls the door closed behind him and Rae, Gerard slumps back onto the sofa and lights a cigarette, pressing the heel of his hand to his hard-on. Fuck, is he in trouble.

*

When the phone rings later, Gerard doesn't answer it.

He's lying in his unmade bed, on top of the Star Wars comforter he's had since he was twelve, smoking his fourth cigarette in an hour. Staring at the same water stain on his ceiling for the last twenty minutes. His hand and his dick are sticky, but the knot in his stomach is still there, small and cold and hard. He's wearing the shirt Rae had on the other day when he got home from work, and it smells a little like her, a little like Mikey. He'd grabbed it off the floor, not realizing, and then couldn't bring himself to take it off when he pulled it over his head and smelled her on the collar.

He sucks a last drag from his cigarette and drops the butt into a Diet Coke can that's been sitting on his dresser for a week. It looks like a bomb went off in here, between the dirty clothes and the empty cigarette packs and soda cans everywhere, ripped-out and crumpled-up pages of his sketchpad littering the floor.

He's been drawing Rae into his panels, in the background where he always draws Mikey, too. Not so different from doodling her initials inside a heart on a notebook, when he thinks about it. He's glad Mikey hasn't asked to see what he's working on recently.

The phone starts to ring again, shrill and high from out in the living room, and Gerard rolls over to face the wall, thinking about how the hell he's going to get this out of his system without fucking up his relationship with Mikey or Mikey's relationship with Rae, and without having to break up a band that hasn't even really started yet, and was his idea in the first place.

*

Mikey lets Gerard get away with postponing and then canceling their first practice twice. Rae hasn't been around in a week; Gerard wonders, with a guilty flicker of hope, if she and Mikey broke up. He wants to ask, so badly, but won't.

The third time Gerard tries to beg off, Mikey corners him by the coffeemaker, blocking him from it. Worst possible timing; Gerard's got no defenses before coffee and at least two cigarettes. Gerard grunts and tries to elbow Mikey out of the way, but he won't budge.

"Hey. What's up with you?" Mikey's eyes are narrowed behind his glasses, his hair still shower-damp and plastered flat to his head.

"Nothing. I just don't feel like having practice tomorrow."

"Or ever? This is the third time you've-"

"Mikey, c'mon, lemme have my coffee before you get on my case."

Mikey steps aside, arms crossed. Gerard can feel Mikey watching him as he pours his coffee, dumps in a couple sweeteners, grabs the milk from the fridge. Taking his time while he tries to come up with a good reason why he's fucking over his kid brother and a girl who's frankly way too talented to be in his shitty band.

He takes his first scalding sip and sighs in relief, leans back against the closed refrigerator door.

"So?" Mikey prods.

"I think I changed my mind, about the band."

Mikey rolls his eyes. " _Why_?"

"I dunno," Gerard mutters, hunching his shoulders in as he takes another swallow of coffee. He put too much milk in.

"Yeah, well, figure it out. If it was just me and you, I wouldn't give a shit, but Rae's really upset, dude. You make her audition for you, you tell her she's in, and now you're blowing the whole thing off."

Gerard chews around the edge of his thumbnail, where there's a bit of loose skin. "That why she hasn't been around?"

"We sort of broke up?" Mikey shrugs. "We're better as friends. And maybe even fucking bandmates, if you can get your shit together."

"We don't have a drummer," Gerard says desperately. He can feel his heartbeat in the back of his throat, fluttery and hot.

"Call Matt." Mikey wads up a napkin and chucks it; it bounces off Gerard's shoulder before he catches it. "Or I'm sure Rae knows some drummers. Quit making lame-ass excuses."

"Fine, Mikey, _god_. I'll call Matt, you call Rae. Tomorrow at four, here. Okay?"

"No, _you_ call Rae." Gerard's art supplies are scattered all over the kitchen table. Mikey grabs a blue marker and scribbles something on the corner of yesterday's newspaper. "Here's her number. She works on Saturdays, but only in the morning." He tears the corner of the paper off and pushes it into Gerard's hand. "Call her, dude. I told her you would."

Gerard looks up into Mikey's face, panicked, and knows that Mikey knows. And knows, by the way Mikey's half-smiling at him, that it's okay. Perceptive little shit's probably been onto him all along. Gerard cuffs a hand over the back of Mikey's neck.

"Fuck you," he says affectionately, ruffling Mikey's hair before shoving him away. "Go do your hair or something."

Mikey half-stumbles out into the hallway, laughing. "Call her!" he shouts back, and Gerard shakes his head, curls his fingers over the smudgy scrap of newspaper in his hand.

*

Gerard waits until Mikey's gone to dig the phone out of the couch cushions, then sits with it in one hand and Rae's number in the other for twenty solid minutes. He should call. He _has_ to call. He _wants_ to call. He just needs a few more minutes, maybe another cigarette, or a soda, some other small distraction.

Gerard's a master of procrastination when he wants to be, but he'll never hear the end of it if Mikey comes home and he's still sitting here psyching himself up to make a simple phone call. Not that he thinks Mikey's coming home any time soon, or maybe at all tonight, but still. He huffs out a nervous breath and jabs out Rae's number with his thumb.

Two rings, three. Gerard holds his breath through the fourth ring, then a click and the tinny imitation of Rae's voice.

"Hi, this is Rae. Sorry I missed you! You know the drill."

He almost hangs up, almost, but then the machine beeps in his ear and he's fumbling for breath, words. Shit.

"Um, hi. Rae? It's Gerard. I just wanted to let you know we're still on for tomorrow. For practice, I mean. Here, around four? So, um, I'll see you then."

It takes him two tries to turn the phone off, but he's grinning, small and stupid, as he shuffles off to the kitchen for a beer.

*

Mikey's gone when Gerard wakes up the next morning. Or, from the looks of it, he never came home. His bed's still unmade in exactly the same way it was when Gerard finally stumbled to bed, sometime around four. It's a little past noon now; wherever Mikey slept, he's probably still out cold. He'll probably breeze in right in time for practice.

Oh shit. Practice.

Gerard sits up so fast his head goes swimmy. He's not ready, not even a little. He hopes Mikey called Matt. Or was he supposed to? He wonders if he should call Rae again, make sure she got his message yesterday, that she's still coming. Better just to let it go, he decides, mostly because he's not sure he can stammer through a conversation right now, with his stomach all clenched up like it is. 

He's pretty sure Rae will show. And if she doesn't, well. He shrugs fitfully at his reflection in the bathroom mirror. No big deal. Right.

It's not even one o'clock yet when he settles at the kitchen table with his coffee and his smokes and his pens, but there's no better way to kill time than this. It's the easiest thing in the world, to get lost in a blank page, in his own head. He's been doing it his whole life.

*

When Gerard looks up at the clock again, it's quarter after three. He drank his way through the entire pot of coffee, and he's got a mostly-completed doodle of Rae riding a dragon. She looks pretty badass, if he says so himself. He grins and adds a little more to the flames coming from the dragon's mouth, fixes a wonky curl in Rae's hair, touches up her hands. Three-thirty. He needs more coffee. It's probably a little early for beer.

There's a knock at the door as he's scooping grounds into the filter, then the creak of hinges and a familiar voice calling, "Hello? Gerard?"

"Kitchen!" he shouts back, dropping the scoop into the coffee can and abandoning the whole endeavor. He'd lost count anyway. He wipes his palms on his jeans, only has time to take half a breath before Rae's peeking around the kitchen doorway.

"Hey." She smiles and drops her bag on one of the chairs. "I'm a little early, sorry."

"No, it's fine, I was just... I was gonna make more coffee. Did you want? Or there's a couple Cokes in the fridge, or-" He breaks off, out of breath and tongue-tied.

She's sinking into the chair he just vacated, her eyes on his sketchpad. "Dude!" She turns it towards her a little more, her eyes wide, bright. "Is this me?"

"Oh, um. Yeah." Gerard looks down at his feet, at the hole in the toe of his sock, his cheeks burning. If only he had a rock to crawl under and maybe die of embarrassment, he would. He looks up at her through his hair and watches her pull the book closer, running her fingertip over the drawing.

"This is awesome!" She beams up at him. "Can I have it?"

Gerard nods dumbly. "Yeah, sure. I mean. It's not finished, but if you want..."

"Well, when it's finished, then?"

He nods again, a little surer, buoyed by her smile. "I don't know where Mikey is," he says, just to fill the silence. "I told him four o'clock, but maybe he's just late."

The legs of Rae's chair scrape along the linoleum when she pushes back from the table, her shadow bleeding into Gerard's as she crosses the kitchen to stand next to him. Their shoulders knock as she leans back on her palms.

She's a little taller than Gerard, but they're the same height like this. Eye to eye, and he fights the urge to look away again, to stammer out something stupid or pointless or both. He was wrong, she _is_ pretty, just not in a conventional kind of way. Gerard's never had much use for convention, anyway.

"Hey, Gerard?" Rae juts her elbow out to connect with his. "Don't be mad, but... I told Mikey not to come."

Gerard starts to ask her why, his mouth puckering around the word and his heart slamming against his ribs, when Rae leans in and kisses him. It's hardly even a kiss at first, just her breath against the corner of his mouth, her lips barely on his. Then he turns, more instinct than anything, and it slides into something solid, real. A little awkward for the angle and his nerves, but he touches her arm, steadies himself in her warm skin, her rabbity pulse under his thumb.

This is fucking crazy, to be standing in his small, smoky kitchen kissing a girl who'd been dating his brother up until a week ago. A girl he's been watching too closely, wanting her and not wanting anyone to know. But Mikey's always been able to see right through him, and if it's a little horrifying that Mikey had to have a hand in making this happen, it's a small price to pay.

"I'm not mad," he says belatedly, laughing small and soundless against Rae's mouth. She shifts closer.

"Can we..." Rae's fingers dig in to his side, purposeful, and Gerard's laugh stops right in the center of his chest, his dick twitching behind his zipper. "Do you wanna go to your room?"

Gerard flashes to his unmade bed, with the sheets he can't remember the last time he washed, the smelly shoes and dirty clothes and all the rest of it, but Rae's been in there before, she knows what she's in for. And she still wants it. Still wants _him_. He finds her hand and squeezes her fingers between his.

"Okay."

It's only a handful of steps but it feels like miles, too many heartbeats. Rae's close at Gerard's side, her hand still tucked in his, her breathing shallow and uneven. The bedroom's dark, the late afternoon sun hitting the other side of the house, but the heat of the day lingers, makes the air heavy and damp. Rae closes the door behind them.

He lets her lead him to the bed, lets her pull him down after her when she sits on his bed. He's too conscious of himself, his clumsy hands and unwieldy body. But Rae's still smiling when she ducks in to kiss him again, and Gerard tries to forget how nervous he is, how long it's been since he's had a girl in here, that the last time Rae was in here she was in Mikey's bed. He puts his hand on her shoulder and she leans back, pulls him down with her until they're sprawled face to face on top of the blankets, their legs tangling.

Gerard touches her hip, kisses her carefully. She curves into him and his thumb slips under her shirt, along the grooves of her ribs. He hesitates for a breath, another messy slide of tongues, before moving his hand up to cup her breast. It's a perfect handful, warm through her bra. Rae tilts into him, making his hips hitch back into her.

"This okay?" he asks, wanting to be sure, because he's never been any good at gauging these things, how far and how fast they should go.

"Yeah." She's palming his side, panting into the kiss. "Here, just. Hang on a sec."

He pulls back, breathless, and watches her take off her glasses. Her shirt rides up when she reaches back to set them on the dresser, and Gerard slides his hand back up her stomach, feels the way it trembles when she laughs and tugs off her shirt.

"There," she says, and settles back against the pillows, squirming until she's half underneath him, his thigh wedged between hers. She tangles her fingers in his hair, rubs her ankle along Gerard's calf. "Better."

It is, it's better and easier with more skin and less clothes, and Gerard lets his fingertips dip under the waist of her jeans, feeling bold and unexpectedly reckless. The skin there is hotter, a little sweaty, and Rae hums against his mouth, twists into him a little more. His hand skids lower.

"Better," she says again, and sticks her hand up the back of Gerard's shirt.

Gerard shivers, works her zipper down with shaky fingers. He's stopped thinking altogether now, and it feels okay. Feels pretty good, actually, to stop trying to sort through the muddle.

He works his hand inside her jeans, over the crotch of her panties, too eager to do more than thumb them aside to slick his fingers through and in indelicately, no finesse. Rae bucks, clutching at his arm. She's wet, tight inside, clenching around his fingers. Gerard's dick is aching in his jeans, and he presses it to her hip, just wanting friction, something to take the edge off.

"Wait." Rae circles his wrist with her fingers, stilling his hand, and Gerard's fingers slip out when she hooks her thumbs into her belt loops and shimmies out of her jeans. He goes for her mouth again with a hungry groan, but she ducks away from him, grinning. " _Wait_."

Gerard bites his lip, where he can still taste her, and rolls off her, blushing and wondering what just happened. But Rae's hand goes to his belt, fumbling at the buckle, and she lets him kiss her this time, deep and messy. He kicks his jeans off, breaks away from her just long enough to lose his shirt, too. Then it's just skin and scraps of cotton, and she's soft and he's hard and their hands are hot, like the space where their breaths mingle between slides of tongues. He gasps, sharp and surprised, when she fists his dick.

There's no rhythm to any of it, their hands out of sync with their mouths, her pulse a half-beat ahead of his--or behind it, he can't tell anymore who's in the lead, and it doesn't matter either way. She grinds against his hand, the heel pressed up hard against her clit, and he's rocking into her fist, grunting as he spills into it, spurting across her belly. He crooks his fingers in deeper, kissing her through the last weak shoves of his hips and the hard clench of her cunt as she comes with a whine, a shiver, the clamp of her thighs around his hand.

They stay like that, with Rae still heaving up into him and his leg still thrown over hers, for a few seconds. And it all catches up with Gerard in a stomach-knotting rush, before he's even caught his breath: this is where things can get _really_ awkward. This is the make-or-break moment. It always is. Fucking around is the easy part; everything else is what's hard, and he wants this to be easy. He wants it to be good, because he likes Rae a lot. More than he even realized, until she told him she'd told Mikey not to come home tonight.

"So," he starts, but there's nothing else in his head. The word hangs, the thought unfinished. One day he'll learn not to open his mouth unless he's got something to say, but today isn't it.

Rae finds Gerard's fingers on her belly and threads hers through them, smiling into a softer kiss. "Are you freaking out?"

Gerard hesitates, then nods. No point in lying.

"Well, don't." She says it matter-of-factly, like it's that easy. He guesses it could be, if he let it. Rae curves away from him with a happy groan, their fingers still linked. "I'm _starving_ ," she declares. "Let's order a pizza and watch really gory horror movies."

Forget _like_ , Gerard's starting to think he might just be in love with her. He kisses her again, can't stop now that he's started, but she doesn't seem to want him to. Maybe this'll be easy after all.

"Okay," he breathes, and only pulls her back once before letting her slip out of the bed to get the phone.

*

They make it halfway through _From Dusk Til Dawn_ and the pizza before Rae's pulling Gerard on top of her, giggling and pawing at his clothes. She hasn't bothered to put anything back on except her t-shirt, and she left her bra somewhere on his bedroom floor. They fuck on the couch with her panties around her ankle and Gerard's briefs pushed down over his ass, the television screen flickering blood-red and blinding white.

It's close to midnight when Rae says half-heartedly, "I should go home," but she doesn't move, and neither does Gerard.

"You could stay," he says, aiming for nonchalant. He's not sure he makes it all the way there. It's Sunday and he's got to work in the morning, but calling in is looking pretty tempting right now. He's still got a couple sick days he hasn't used.

"Yeah?"

Gerard doesn't want to let her go, is the thing. It's been a good night; it could be a good morning, too, he thinks. They'll go to the diner, maybe, and actually talk about the band. It'll sure as hell beat sitting in his cubicle.

"Yeah." He sits up and reaches for her hand. "C'mon."

*

Mikey's at the kitchen table when Gerard pads in the next morning, sitting there with a Dunkin Donuts coffee and an ancient, water-warped issue of Spider-Man that he's probably read a hundred times already. Gerard stops in the doorway, wondering how long Mikey's been home. He and Rae have been up for a while already, and haven't exactly been watching their volume.

Funny, isn't it, how quickly the tables turn.

Gerard clears his throat and Mikey looks up, eyebrow cocked. His face breaks into one of those goofy Mikey grins when he sees Gerard standing there. Gerard can only imagine what he looks like.

"Rough night?" Mikey asks.

"Shut up," Gerard mumbles, but he's returning Mikey's grin. He makes his way to the coffeepot, the filter still full from when Rae interrupted him yesterday. He dumps the grounds back into the coffee can and starts over. "Where were _you_ last night?"

"House party. I crashed at Gabe's. So how was, uh..." Mikey makes air quotes with his fingers. "Band practice?"

Gerard bites back a retort, swallows it down and contents himself with a bigger smile. This is still a little weird around the edges, but mostly not. "It was good." He dumps one last scoop of coffee in and jabs the Start button. "We're gonna go to the diner in a little while, I think, if you wanna come."

Mikey shakes his head, then crosses his arms on the table and rests his cheek on them. "Dude, I gotta get some fucking sleep." He squints at Gerard through his glasses. "How gross is the couch? Don't lie."

"Should be dry by now." Gerard snorts at the face Mikey pulls, and decides he can wait a little while longer for his morning coffee fix. Mikey'll drink the pot he just made later, when he comes to. Coffee never goes to waste in the Way house. "Gimme a couple minutes and we'll get out of here."

"Awesome." Mikey gives him a weak thumbs-up.

Gerard steps up behind Mikey's chair, curling his fingers over the back. Mikey peers up at him sleepily.

"Thanks, Mikey," Gerard says, reaching over to knead Mikey's shoulder. "For... you know."

Mikey half nods and half shrugs, lanky limbs twitching. "Yeah, I know. Now go the damn diner so I can go to bed."

"I'm going, I'm going!"

Rae's sitting up in bed when Gerard walks back in, the sheets tucked up under her arms. She looks worried. "Everything okay?" she asks. "I thought I heard Mikey's voice."

Gerard collects her clothes from the floor and sits on the edge of the bed. Takes a second to make sure that what he's about to say is true, but it is, so he smiles. "Everything's good."

*

Gerard almost forgets about the band. He does, actually, for a few weeks, too preoccupied and wrapped up in the thrill of just being with Rae. She starts staying over more than she goes home, and Mikey makes himself scarcer than usual. The corner booth at the Tick Tock, by the coat rack, becomes theirs; the waitresses know them by name, and stop charging them for their coffee.

Rae finds Gerard's old guitar and spends an afternoon tuning it, sitting on his bed in her bra and panties. He watches her from the opposite corner, his sketchpad open across his lap, but he can't take his eyes off her long enough to draw anything. Her hair's fallen in her face; Gerard can just make out the flash of her teeth when she smiles, her fingers stilling on the strings.

"So, hey." Rae shakes her hair out of her eyes, and how the hell Gerard ever thought she was anything but pretty is totally beyond him. "What's going on with the band? Are we still doing it or what?"

"Do you still want to?" He knows she does, or she wouldn't have brought it up in the first place; he just doesn't want her to know long it's been since he's even thought about it. She's distracting. But she's also too fucking good not to be playing, and if it's selfish to want her to do it with him, he's okay with that.

"Of course!" She pokes him in the leg with her toe. "I mean, c'mon. You made me _audition_ for it."

Gerard sets his sketchbook and pen aside and scoots around so he's next to her, her bare arm sweat-damp and hot against his. He leans into her. "Is this gonna be the kind of thing you never let me live down?"

She leans back, laughing. "Yup."

*

It's a few more weeks and a couple false starts before they get the band together. Rae calls in one of her friends to drum for them, but it turns out to be a girl Mikey hooked up with once at a party and then never called after, so she doesn't even stay through one rehearsal. Then Mikey auditions for Pencey and they wait around for three days for the phone to ring, only to find out he didn't get it. Gerard lets him mope for a whole day, then makes Mikey help him and Rae with the bassline of a song they've been working on. A few days after that Gerard calls Matt, who's between bands, and even offers up the garage as a rehearsal space.

They're not very good.

They're not _bad_ , but they're nothing special, no different than dozens of other mediocre Jersey bands. But Mikey uses his connections for good instead of evil, for once, and gets them a gig. A hole of a bar on a Thursday night, but it's a stage and an audience and Gerard feels fucking amazing, up there with his brother and his best friend and his girlfriend, who makes the rest of them sound a hell of a lot better. Gerard and Mikey and Matt get their share of handshakes and congratulations after the set, but Rae's the one everyone really wants to talk to. If anyone gets that, it's Gerard.

He pulls her aside as they're breaking down, into the shadows of the wing of the small stage. There are a million things right on the tip of his tongue, words that mean either nothing or everything, but all he does is kiss her, his hands cupping her face. He feels her smile, then laugh, and his chest goes tight, happy. His ears are still ringing.

"Save it," she chides, but she presses her mouth to his again before pulling away. She grabs his hand and tugs. "C'mon, help load out."


End file.
